


Sugar Sugar

by sailaway



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Begging, Daddy Kink, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Loss of Virginity, Older Man/Younger Woman, Reader-Insert, i need jesus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 00:07:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14705384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailaway/pseuds/sailaway
Summary: When was it that Thanos first noticed the change in his protegée's behavior? A sudden uptick of sullenness, attention-seeking, as if regressing backwards into the restless petulance of a juvenile. He wouldn't have let such disrespect slide, had he not been so fond of her. It didn't take long to discern the source of it all: jealousy. It's petty and beneath them both – at least, ought to be. Try as he might, he can't summon the willpower to scold her for it.She grins as he approaches, and he tells himself the blush in her cheeks is merely from her exertions in the sparring room.He knows better.





	Sugar Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> Much of this is, particularly the first half, is drawn from a conversation with adoesetfree. Many thanks for these top notch ideas. If we're going to hell, at least we'll be in good company. 
> 
> Please observe the tags. I don't use them lightly! 
> 
> Also, excuse the shift from third person to second. I really wanted to get both perspectives.

* * *

 

 

_-THEN-_

 

 

“When did you last train with me, Thanos?”

His protegée, one of many, takes a wide-footed stance in the middle of the round sparring platform, features quirked in a bashful but impish challenge. Brute force is not where her strength lies but he values physical proficiency nonetheless, if only for standard self-defense purposes, so as she's aged out of scrawny adolescence she's begun to train, albeit separately from the rigorous drills and routines of his other Children.

Thanos allows himself a restrained smile. “Do I incriminate myself if I say too long to remember?”

It's late and the training hall is empty. She is alone, save for a synth-flesh dummy, still jiggling from her kick to its gut. He only came here to ensure she's where she's supposed to be, and not skiving off like she is wont to do. It isn't laziness, she's just easily entertained elsewhere, but nonetheless it needs correction. He used to take a larger role in her instruction but he has been occupied of late, and leaves the responsibility to a trusted trainer.

Perhaps that was his first mistake.

When was it that he first noticed the change in her behavior? A sudden uptick of sullenness, attention-seeking, as if regressing backwards into the restless petulance of a juvenile. He wouldn't have let such disrespect slide, had he not been so fond of her. It didn't take long to discern the source of it all: jealousy. He's been spending more time away from the ship, with Children better suited to the often grim tasks of planet subjugation and depopulation operations. Such envy is petty and beneath them both – at least, ought to be. Try as he might, he can't summon the willpower to scold her for it.

She grins as he approaches the platform, and he tells himself the flush in her cheeks is exertion.

He knows better.

He'd endeavored to be more attentive, extending gestures of affection that would surely placate her: a kind word, a benign touch to the top of her head, a suggestion to eat dinner together. It was in one of these instances, mere days ago, that he pulled her into his lap in response to a trifling moment of upset from her. He hadn't given it any thought, it was simple muscle memory from her younger years.

He couldn't put his finger on what it was that tipped him off. A change in how she was looking at him? Her posture? Not the slumped lean-in of a child accepting comfort but the coiled, breathless tension of a woman seduced.

He hadn't let her go right away. He'd sat unmoving, thoughts far away and tangled, as she calmed herself and eventually slipped away without a word. He'd continued to sit for a long time.

With no small amount of reluctance Thanos ascends the four steps up to the platform now, taking his time though he could have done it in one stride. He hasn't yet figured out how to handle this situation and here she is encouraging him into dangerous proximity with her.

There's no reason he can't refuse. But he doesn't.

He looks down into her face – bright-eyed, gamine, clever and capable but innocent in a way most would have shed long ago.

Does she realize the nature of her own feelings? Does she hide it only from him, or from herself, as well?

They spar. He doesn't take it easy on her. That isn't to say he gives her the full brunt of an assault – he doesn't want to kill her – but he makes it a challenge. Her primary method lies in defense, dodging and skirting his attacks, getting a hit in or attempting to trip him when she can dart in close enough. He appreciates her grace and speed even as he snakes an arm around her and tosses her to the mat.

She winds up splayed beneath him, limbs akimbo, wind knocked out of her. As she regains her senses she bucks up, trying to break his hold, but to no avail. He pins her with ease and her thrashing only costs her leverage, thighs parting on either side of his, thus dividing the force she could have applied into kneeing him.

It's only a token effort she puts up, and she surrenders far too soon. He furrows his brow down at her, in wordless question at such speedy failure. In ordinary circumstances he would have expected a protest, a playful smack to whichever open part of him she could reach, exclamations of frustration or capitulation or a demand for a rematch.

Instead there is only a long, gravid pause.

And then her back comes off the mat, a deep and unsteady inhale pressing her chest into his. It's a subtle and involuntary shift, one he might have missed had he not been looking for it. If anything, it's almost the lack of movement that gives her away: in contrast to her usual self she is quiet, and tense, and large-eyed.

His hold on her softens.

Thanos is a thinker. His standard cognitive operations skip ahead, brain traveling a dozen routes at a time – analyzing, calculating, computing. And so he's considered _this,_ in the most clinical way he could, but what use is objectivity now? Especially when he had yet to come to a conclusion about it?

She's so small in comparison to him. Everyone is, but somehow she feels particularly so. She always has. She's tough when it's called for, there's coiled resilience and surprising tenacity in that human frame, but she's a shade more soulful than the others. Intuitive. And now she's all pliable angles and parting lips –

He moves his fingers, experimentally, down her side. Just to see, he justifies to himself. The entire half of her ribcage fits in his hand. As if made for the precise curve of his palm.

She's not breathing anymore.

He arrives at her hipbone. He runs his thumb over the arc, as if testing a knife's edge. Her eyes get bigger still. Her bottom lip trembles. Not with fear, he doesn't think – she has always been an open book to him – but with heightened feeling, overwhelming awareness.

“Do you like it when I handle you this way?” He pitches his voice low and neutral, injecting no expectation into the question. Her hands are motionless on his biceps but her eyes take him in, vulnerable as she processes. Can he recall her ever being so reticent, this sweet and earnest creature, his youngest?

His throat tightens.

So does his hold on her, spreading over the contour of her waist, finding her fragile pulse. And without speaking she answers him, her every reaction – the hitch in her breathing, the lissome molding of herself to his touch, her unbroken focus on him – replying in place of a tongue-tied mouth.

His skin prickles as if with static electricity. A medley of protective desire unfurls inside him, unexpected and rapid, and no longer does he need to think about any of it.

He places the barest impression of a kiss on her temple – platonic, benign – and she makes a near-inaudible sound, paired with a shaky intake of breath. With each subsequent kiss – navigating down her cheek, her smooth jaw – the mood of each changes, the last vestiges of chastity crumbling, his lips lingering longer and longer. Any hope of feigned ignorance, or of backtracking, falls away.

Thanos observes that he isn't sorry to lose it.

He doesn't look in her eyes before he presses his mouth to hers. He goes on instinct, on sensation. Her lips, so soft and docile, the puff of air as she exhales, the following ragged inhalation: it feels to him, with a jolt of lust, that she's breathing him in.

Suddenly he cannot fill his hands with enough of her, sliding them under her back to crush her to him. He deepens the kiss and at last she succumbs with overwhelming response: arms thrown around his neck, thighs tightening on him with ardent need, all the more erotic for the unsophisticated guilelessness of it.

It's intoxicating. A revelation. And, inexplicably, makes utter sense to him.

But raw arousal be damned, he won't have her here on the floor. She needs more care than that. She is too precious to him. So he releases her, rising and pulling her to her feet. Her hair is in disarray, gaze embarrassed and unsure.

His hand dwarfs hers. “Come with me.”

She follows.

Once in his chambers the first bloom of her enthusiasm has receded and she stands nervously, shifting from foot to foot, not meeting his eyes.

Thanos closes the scant gap between them and tilts up her chin. “What do you fear?”

“I'm... not sure.” Her voice is hoarse as if from years of disuse.

“Me?”

She shakes her head and in that, at least, she seems certain.

Unlike many of the others she was already out of childhood and into gawky adolescence when she'd first come to him, but she'd been just the same as the rest at first – self-conscious, fearful of humiliation, afraid to displease. He'd thought she'd grown out of it but sees it in her now, and wants to wipe it away like he might a tear.

With his knuckle he outlines the right angle of her shoulder, drawing down her arm, and her eyes drift briefly closed as if in relief – in a realization of something long-wanted. When she opens her eyes again they are shining and filled with total trust.

Dizzying desire surges up inside him.

He takes her to bed like a bride to the altar, and even as she shivers from nerves she remains close to him, letting him lead her, fingers fidgety in his.

He undresses her with the care reserved for unveiling works of art. He tempers the speed of his hands despite his own rising arousal, watching her for cues, not drinking her in like he might have otherwise done so as to spare her the feeling of being ogled. He focuses instead above the neck – the fall of her hair, the fan of lashes against her blushing cheek, glimpses of her tongue worrying the seam of her lips – and finds himself as inflamed as if she'd been on full wanton display.

She's barely touched him and already he feels he's unraveling.

He sits on the edge of the bed to mitigate their height difference and draws her in between his knees. Tentative fingers walk along his shirt and onto his arms, skittishness overcome by this new freedom to explore at her leisure. He wonders how long she's thought about this, or if at all.

“Would you like to undress me?”

She blinks several times, and whispers, “Yes.”

His attire is uncomplicated, and her quick and curious hands make short work of it. Her gaze roves over his exposed torso, and he can tell from movement of her eyes that she's following the fine channels that line his skin. Her hands have returned to her side but it's clear she wants to reach out, her lips slack with want.

The patterns arc down into his trousers and it's here she hesitates, his arousal evident through the fabric. On impulse he pulls her astride him, wrapping his arms around her, unable to quench his own need to seize her and press her bare body to his. She startles, but her thighs part around his waist, slow as she adjusts to the feel of his thickening bulge. Emboldened hands move over his chest: she traces the lines of both musculature and his own unique patterns, probes a scar, hovers over the beat of his heart.

She is soft; so soft. Not only the texture of her skin or the brush of her breasts but her quickening breath, the way her eyes are going heavy-lidded, how she's relaxing into him. Within the compartments of his being she's always belonged in a quiet, exclusive place set apart from the more exacting regard he has for her peers. That she could have been jealous of anyone else seems absurd now.

He lays her down and as he settles between her legs she stares up at him in crystalline adoration, pinking again as he at last works down his trousers, her grip steady on his shoulders as if to a lifeline. She feels the way sugar tastes.

Despite her obvious want she's still jumpy, on edge. He puts two fingers to her lips, masking his amusement at the uncertain widening of her eyes. But he doesn't have to instruct her to open for her to do so, accepting his fingertips and closing her lips around them, pupils dilating at the pressure on her tongue.

Then he withdraws and slips them between their bodies, to where he's trying very hard not to let his impatient cock touch her just yet.

“Oh!” Her delicate exclamation would be an aphrodisiac in and of itself, even if not for her reaction when he glides now-wet fingers along the length of her sex. She glazes a bit as he overwhelms her – he stokes the existent embers, sparking them to flame, fanning that into fire. She comes alive for him, clasping his biceps and undulating beneath him, hypnotic in her pure and artless passion.

He dips the very tip of his forefinger inside her and she makes an odd sound, her grasp on him intensifying. She's so tight around him and he all but chokes at the thought of sinking into that supple heat.

“Thanos,” she whines. “I...”

“Are you ready for me, little one?”

She nods frantically, her movements sinuous and yearning. He braces above her, mindful of his weight. It's a difficult task to curb himself, with his cock grazing her inviting folds, but he is reluctant to hurt her. She is small and uninitiated, while nature saw fit to bestow him very generously –

“I know, I know,” she blurts in a rush, as if reading his thoughts. “It's okay, please, I just...”

He smooths away the tumble of her hair. One more kiss to the crown of her head.

He watches to be sure there is no blood – that would be unacceptable to him – but remains riveted by his shaft disappearing into her body, fraction by fraction, the blunt head of it just barely visible through the flat expanse of skin above her mound. Her mouth is frozen in an O, eyes fixed unblinking on his. Still trusting. Completely.

He lets her adjust before beginning to move with painstaking slowness, both for her benefit and his own – savoring the yielding warmth of her, the morphing expressions on her face, the tremulous euphoria of her sighs. He keeps his thrusts shallow, measuring the connection of his pelvis against her to drag on her clit just so.

He watches her climax building like one might watch a sunrise. The responding rock of her hips increases in pace, her flush spreading down to her breasts. Inadvertently or by design the tension in her grasp on his neck pulls him closer atop her. Has she always been so beautiful? So luminous? Or has this particular magnificence been saved solely for him?

Her next gasp is primal; delirious. And she mumbles, faint and pleading, “Daddy.”

His stoic heart trips; almost stumbles. It takes every drop of self-discipline not to come then and there, too early, before he's brought her to pleasure.

“Yes,” is all he manages to say, grinding hard into her; and then she's coming apart in his arms, near soundlessly, nothing but a strangled sob wrenching out of her, nails marking his shoulders and body bowing convex off the bed and into him. Even if he hadn't already been close to his own release this would've put him over the edge and so he lets it go, pumping deep inside her, her throbbing heat taking everything from him.

Without reservation, he gives.

After, she lays curled against his side, fitting to him as comfortably as a bird in its nest. What is going through her mind, he cannot know, but her features are languid, glowing, and content. Nothing has ever suited her better. Anathema to consider that he might've never gotten a chance, or even expected, to see her thus – and yet, illogically, it feels as though it has always been this way between them.

It is Thanos' nature to study and scrutinize and assess a situation from all possible vantage points. Yet now his thoughts, like spokes on a wheel, lead him only inward to a single hub – to a conviction that is at once simple and organic as it is profound. And this conviction is nothing more complex than the sheer rightness of it, of _this:_ a fork in the road he hadn't foreseen but yet, in hindsight, somehow seems totally inevitable. It needs no analysis. No moral judgment. No overthinking.

As busy as his mind unfailingly is, right here – right now – he can rest.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_-NOW-_

 

 

You approach Thanos as he dresses, scuffing the floor with one bare toe, morning robe whispering around your thighs in a swirl of dusky pink silk. “Can I come with you today?”

His belt snicks into place at his hips.

“I have much to attend to,” he demurs. “And it would be better for you to occupy yourself elsewhere. How is your return to training coming?”

“Better.” You'd severely sprained your wrist and were out of commission for three weeks, but you know how easy it is to lose muscle mass, and were back at it as soon as the physician approved.

You hang back now, your earnest request rendering you a degree more shy than usual. Your appreciative gaze traces the slopes and swells of his muscular arms, shoulders flexing under the snug tunic as he pulls it smooth and rotates to you.

His hand cups your face – more just the tips of his fingers, really, so broad the span of his palms are. When he touches you, no matter how kindly, you become fine china; blown glass. Handle with care.

“You're sweet.” His thumb is benevolent and feather-light on the curve of your jaw, corners of his eyes crinkling with subtle but to you, unmissable, fondness. “But I promise you, with what is on my schedule today, you would be bored.”

“I won't,” you argue, catching at his elbow as he turns away. His eyes flick down to where you restrain him, one brow raised leniently. “I like being part of it. Even if it's just listening. And I know you want me to learn.”

He considers. “You may spend the morning with me,” he compromises. “Then after lunch, the sparring room. No questions.”

Even on tiptoe you can't possibly meet his height so he lowers his head expectantly, and you plant a powder-puff kiss on his jaw.

“Thank you, daddy.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

You've always felt safe and content with Thanos but here at his feet, on the top step before his throne, you feel _right._ From this special place you listen to dossiers, updates, and reports from his subordinates, adding more connecting strands to your mind's web of the ship's population and all those that make up his army. His Children are gifts from the universe, each blessed with myriad talents and skills that elicit his favor: but no one else, ever, sits in this spot.

Now and then your hair is toyed with, the contact on your scalp so light and fleeting it might be mistaken for the breeze had you been outdoors. Or he shifts in such a way that allows his knee to graze between your shoulder blades, or his boot on your thigh, the reminders of his proximity both suggestive and reassuring.

To you, that is his very essence. Simultaneously he is protective and passionate, stern and forgiving, authoritative and gentle and intimate: all of it entwined, symbiotic and inseparable. Who else could be all that? Who else had ever been? There is no guilt for disregarding your life before this one. That time is foggy and fragmented, marred with flashes of hunger and dirty feet and one shack among many that never kept the cold out.

Thanos had appeared like a being from legend, larger than life, and though you still can't recall the exact exchange you shared that day in the slums, the memory of your awe and fascination is as vivid as it ever was. Eventually you'd seen him for what he is, a man, though even that had felt too small a word for him. He is everything.

Riffling through it all now, rolling back the years, it's so obvious to you now: it could only have ever been him. Sometimes, privately, you feel you were born for Thanos: and he, in turn, had been waiting for you.

Your wandering mind is brought back to the present by a heavy hand on the nape of your neck.

“Time for you to go,” he murmurs, interrupting two timid representatives bearing tribute from a world the Black Order had recently razed. You don't question or object but uncurl stiff limbs, feeling the pair's unspoken, blinking curiosity on you as you stretch, rise, and descend the steps.

As you pass them you can hear the near-imperceptible upward tilt of Thanos' mouth when he says from behind you, “There's a good girl.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

You return to your personal chambers that evening sweaty and sore, hair sticking to your forehead, burning with the satisfied fatigue of hard exercise. You peel away your clothes and shower, luxuriating in the spray until you start to prune. Your wrist is healed, but it twinges a bit, and the hot water assuages the trivial soreness.

On your way out of the wash-room you're so focused on finger-combing your hair that you almost run smack into the towering titan – you yelp, stumbling back, then relax with embarrassed relief.

“You startled me,” you laugh, rearranging your towel around you again. “I didn't expect to see you so soon.”

“Your afternoon was productive, I assume?” he prompts, nodding toward the haphazard trail of clothes in the middle of the room.

“Reasonably.” You scoot forward to tidy up after yourself but he catches your arm, an echo of the way you'd grabbed him that morning. His grip closes around your still-wet arm so easily he's all but making a fist.

“Your efforts please me,” he says, gravelly and low. Your stomach flutters at the praise but you know what he's about, with that molasses-sultry tone and the downward path of his heated gaze.

“But I already showered.” Your protest is weak, and you both know it. He's as irresistible to you as catnip.

“You've gotten stronger,” he says with pride, indicating your toned arms and defined stomach. “Leaner. Lither. I may have only meant for you to learn the basics, but I think I'll make a fighter of you still.”

In demonstration you swing your hand up and around to chop his wrist, breaking his hold. It only works because he's not trying, and he makes no attempt to stop your shimmy away.

“Such spirit,” he teases. “I'd be curious to see what newly acquired strategies you'd employ with the deck so stacked against you.”

“First off, I wouldn't let you get close to me in the first place.”

“Because...?” he prompts, not because he doesn't understand the tactic but because he wants to be sure you do. He takes a casual step in your direction. You mirror it with two back, to account for the length of his stride.

“Because once you caught me, it would be over.”

You dance out of reach but he catches the edge of the fluffy towel and snaps it free, letting it crumple behind him like a snowdrift. You squeal and bounce away, damp body gleaming in the dim light. His appraisal of you is both affectionate and heavy with a more sensual intent.

“I'm faster than I used to be,” you coquette.

But he decides he's done playing and is on you in an instant, more swiftly than his bulk might indicate, one massive arm hooking around your torso. He spins you around and pulls your back against his abdomen, hand spreading flat up your clavicle like a choker. His chuckle is a bass rumble against you.

“Still you yield too quickly,” he says in regards to your lack of struggle, but the slot of his vee-ing hand over your throat leaves you little choice. “We both know that's not what you've been taught.”

“You're distracting me.”

“Am I?” He inhales, expanding against your back. His thumb and forefinger caress the veins on either side of your neck. “Shall I leave you to your rest?”

“No, I hardly saw you yesterday,” you pout. “And not at all the day before.”

“So demanding,” he purrs.

“Sometimes.” You can feel the curve of his cock hardening against your spine and you sink into him, letting your head fall back.

He drums on your collarbone. “Is there something you want?”

“Yeah.”

“That's not much of an answer. You have to ask for it.”

“Come on,” you blush. “I want you...”

“Want me to what?”

“I want you to fuck me, daddy.”

“Hmm,” he acknowledges. “Is that so.”

You squirm at the growing ache in your core, curling plaintive fingers over the corded forearm that restrains you.

“Not to worry,” he promises. “I'll take care of you, little one.”

He steers you towards the bed and gives you a light shove, sending you on your belly into the soft mattress.

“Don't move.”

You tuck your arms underneath you, goosebumps of anticipation chasing over your skin, listening to the sounds of him disrobing: the solid thud of his boots, his belt clicking, tunic rustling as he tugs it off. The creak of the bed under his weight.

His hands begin at your ankles, moving up your calves with painstaking but purposeful slowness, parting your thighs and sliding a palm between them.

“Oh.” The single syllable is indulgent as he discovers your wetness. “Is this for me?” He skids two fingers along your slit and you clamp your legs over his hand, scrunching your face into the plush covers.

He gives one buttock a crisp smack, close to painless but still enough to a provoke a popped bubble of a squeak from you. You start to rise on all fours but he pushes your torso back down, gripping your hips to yank your ass in the air.

For half a moment his warm breath ghosts over your exposed sex and then a hiss of relief spills from you, absorbed by the covers, as his tongue slips between your folds. The shameless skill of his mouth is indecent, the most intimate kiss, circling your entrance with the tip of his tongue before closing his lips over your clit. You tremble but he keeps you up, so easily despite your panting and wriggling, as he spirals you higher and higher.

“Please,” you beg. “I... I...”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I want you to fuck me now." Even to your own ears you sound fevered, half-wild with desire. “I want you inside me.”

His muscular thighs align with the backs of yours, the hot satiny length of him sliding along your overheated sex. He rubs the head deliberately on your clit, taunting you, making pass after pass over your entrance. You arch, desperate, and when you finally moan with frustrated need he positions you again just the way he wants.

Your breath constricts as he breaches you, stretching you near to shattering, the fine ridges on the shaft rasping that sensitive spot just inside your inner walls. He doesn't rush, he knows you need time to take him, but blind lust urges you to push back prematurely onto him and then wince at the sting.

“Slower,” Thanos chides, undoing your movement by partly withdrawing. He takes hold of your waist, controlling the speed and depth. “Let me, little one.”

He fills you with steady rolls of his hips, bit by bit, and when he finally hits bottom you sigh, drunk on it – the steady cage of his big hands, his thumbs making circles in the dip at the base of your spine, his guttural groan as he draws back then plunges in again, somehow even deeper than before.

The sounds you make are shameless as he sets a torturous pace, the snap of his thrusts driving you into the bed, mussing the covers. The friction of him inside you, the slam of his hips on your ass – then he's pushing you down flat, powerful chest flush against your back, bracing on one forearm to offset his weight.

His free hand delves purposefully under you, and your whimper is sharp but helpless as he strokes you. You are utterly in his power – he surrounds you, handling you like a instrument, tuning your strings tighter and tighter to reach that perfect high note. And you're left unable to do anything but let him.

He syncs his rhythm as he fucks you and fingers you, overwhelming you from every facet, taking you to pieces. Your eyes screw shut and you bury your face in the covers, mouth opening in a muffled cry –

“No,” he commands, low and throaty. “I want to hear it.”

You gasp, every fiber in you beginning to tauten, heat overtaking you, blood singing. “Daddy – ”

The pads of his fingertips move just so and you detonate – contracting around him, clenching the covers so hard your hands cramp, white-hot pinpricks firing behind your eyelids like a star field.

After an indeterminable amount of time floating – it can't actually have been more than a moment or two – he resumes his pace, rougher now. Sated though you are, it still feels good, and you tip your ass up and he grasps with punishing force. He's probably leaving bruises. You don't mind.

He growls, his body going rigid – then his cock pulses and fills you, so completely there's no room for his release and you can feel it spurting, trickling hot out of your plump folds. It's messy; it's lewd. You don't mind that, either.

After he catches his breath he rolls you over, cock slipping free as he does so. His serious features are mellowed by satisfaction as he sinks down onto his stomach, draping an arm over your midriff with eyes half-closed. They are such pale blue; like ice. Or a clear spring sky. Depends on how you look at it; or how he looks at you.

You wiggle in closer to him. “Stay with me a while?”

“If you want me to.”

“Of course I do.” 

The steady rise and fall of his chest is a lullaby. You lay quietly together for a while, in some timeless place, ephemeral and unimportant thoughts drifting past like dust motes in a ray of sunlight. When he speaks again, drowsy and deep, it vibrates against your cheek.

"You know you never have to ask." 

 

 

* * *

 

 


End file.
